Honestly, here’s a story that the Catholic press needs to pick up. It’s pretty awesome.
Gene Yang is an artist and comic book author who’s been on my radar for a couple of years now. He’s sent me copies of a few of his books, including his very nice Rosary Comic Book, published by Pauline Media.
A few months ago, he sent me American Born Chinese; – a graphic novel.
I handed it over to Katie, who sat on the couch and read it all the way through, and liked it very much. I asked her to give me a review for the blog, but all she could manage at the time was "It was really good – it’s about your identity and accepting yourself."
Little did I know that the novel had been nominated for an award – the first graphic novel ever nominated for a National Book Award, in the category of Young People’s Literature.
The awards ceremony was a couple of nights ago, and another book won the category, but the author of the winning title, M.T. Anderson, made a point of mentioning Yang and ABC in the acceptance speech.
Here’s a piece from today’s Oakland Tribune about Yang, who teaches computer science at Bishop O’Dowd high school:
The 240-page novel is a coming-of-age story about Jin Wang, who moves from San Francisco’s Chinatown to a suburb. The novel creatively incorporates the story of the Monkey King from the Chinese classic "Journey to the West," as well as a third character, "Chin-Kee," who epitomizes all the Chinese stereotypes Yang said he could think of.
Although his other books have Asian-American protagonists, this is his first that is overtly about the Asian-American experience.
Growing up in Saratoga, Yang says he saw firsthand the growth of Asian Americans in the South Bay, where he and his other Asian-American friends felt the brunt of a racial backlash. Some of the barbs hurled at the fictional Jin were lifted straight from Yang’s childhood.
"They were taunts that were thrown out at me and my friends in junior high, almost word for word," said Yang, noting he was just one of a handful of Asian Americans at his elementary school. However, junior high was the most brutal in terms of hearing overtly racist remarks, he said.
Yang had heard the Monkey King story from his mother since he was a little kid. It follows the journey of the Monkey King and other characters assigned to protect a Buddhist monk on his travels through China. It is approximated in Yang’s book, although with a huge twist in the end and subtle Christianizing — Yang is Catholic — of the traditional Buddhist story.
Here’s another profile of Yang, from a few weeks ago.
Congratulations on the well-deserved recognition!
Another YA novel sent to me by the author is Swan Town: The Secret Journal of Susanna Shakespeare by Michael Ortiz, who, I believe, is also a teacher. He worked for a long time on this book, and the work bore great fruit – Katie really enjoyed this one too, and I think may have even read it twice. I’ve been negligent on posting on it because I’ve been trying to get her to actually sit down and write a paragraph-long review of it, but that is harder than it might seem. So just take this as her review – totally positive!
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